> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lamar Owen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 
> Sent: Monday, August 26, 2002 10:50 AM
> To: Bruce Momjian; Tom Lane
> Cc: Sir Mordred The Traitor; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [HACKERS] @(#)Mordred Labs advisory 0x0007: 
> Remove DoS in PostgreSQL
> 
> 
> On Monday 26 August 2002 12:59 pm, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > Tom Lane wrote:
> > > It may indeed make sense to put a range check here, but 
> I'm getting 
> > > tired of hearing the words "dos attack" applied to 
> conditions that 
> > > cannot be exploited to cause any real problem.  All you are 
> > > accomplishing is to spread FUD among people who aren't 
> sufficiently 
> > > familiar with the code to evaluate the seriousness of problems...
> 
> > It isn't fun to have our code nit-picked apart, and Sir-* is 
> > over-hyping the vulnerability, but it is a valid concern.  
> The length 
> > should probably be clipped to a reasonable length and a 
> comment put in 
> > the code describing why.
> 
> The pseudo-security-alert format used isn't terribly 
> palatable here, IMHO.  On 
> BugTraq it might fly -- but not here. 

An alarmist style when posting a serious error is a good idea.
"Hey guys, I found a possible problem..."
Does not seem to generate the needed level of excitement.
DOS attacks means that business stops.  I think that should generate a
furrowed brow, to say the least.

> A simple 'Hey guys, I 
> found a possible 
> problem when.....' without the big-sounding fluff would sit 
> better with me, 
> at least.  The substance of the message is perhaps valuable 
> -- but the 
> wrapper distracts from the substance.

As long as the needed data is included (here is how to reproduce the
problem...) I don't see any problem.
 
> And dealing with a real name would be nice, IMHO.  Otherwise 
> we may end up 
> with 'SMtT' as the nickname -- Hmmm, 'SMitTy' perhaps?  :-)  
> Reminds me of 
> 'Uncle George' who did quite a bit for the Alpha port and 
> then disappeared.

If he wants to call himself 'Sir Modred' or 'Donald Duck' or 'Jack the
Ripper' or whatever, I don't see how it matters.  He is providing a
valuable service by location of serious problems.  These are the sort of
thing that must be addressed.  This is the *EXACT* sort of information
that is needed to make PostgreSQL become as robust as Oracle,
SQL*Server, DB/2, etc.

Every free database engine project should be so lucky as to have a 'Sir
Modred'

IMO-YMMV.

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